There are reasons for that extra cost that are intended to protect the public over time (both customers and non-customers).

The comment you are replying to doesn't appear to think those protections are manifesting themselves. If you are taking the same chance whether the restaurant is regulated or unregulated, or worse, there's more of a chance at the restaurant that is supposedly obeying the regulations, those regulations aren't worth anything.

The government needs to come in with an engineering team and lay down the law as to how things will go from now on. Not going to happen, but all this other stuff won't work, so I might as well throw this out there now. The AI apocalypse can't happen soon enough.

...or bands that we find via something like YouTube. That's the real reason the RIAA is trying to squeeze Google. They don't like the deal they got with Apple's iTunes, and don't want to be even *more* left behind. They failed to embrace online digital distribution when customers initially clamored for it, tried to sue their way out of it being possible, and now are scrambling to try and figure out how to claw their way back to the same type of margins they once had when they controlled distribution and marketing.

AmiMoJo writes: An Oregon District Court has sided with a wrongfully accused man, who was sued for allegedly downloading a pirated copy of the Adam Sandler movie The Cobbler. According to the court's recommendations, the man is entitled to more than $17,000 in compensation as the result of the filmmakers "overaggressive" and "unreasonable" tactics. The defendant in question, Thomas Gonzales, operates an adult foster care home where several people had access to the Internet. The filmmakers were aware of this and during a hearing their counsel admitted that any guest could have downloaded the film.